UK: Veterans discard medals at Downing St. in opposition to decision to bomb Syria

Date of publication: 08 12 2015, 23:28

Several war veterans representing the organisation ‘Veterans for Peace’ discarded their medals outside Downing Street in London, Tuesday, in protest against the decision made in Parliament last week to bomb Syria.

SOT, Ben Griffin, SAS veteran (English): “[Dave, another veteran] he never got over his experience of war, I’m returning his medals also.”

SOT, Daniel Lenham, veteran (English): “I can think of no better way of doing that than by relinquishing these tokens of militarism, if you look close enough at these medals you can see the reflections of dead Iraqis, you can see the embers of Libya ,you can see the faces of the men and women of the british armed forces who didn’t return and also those who did who’ve lost limbs with shattered souls, I no longer require these medals, we are veterans for peace.”

SOT, Daniel Lenham, veteran (English): “I would just like to leave you with this simple message: we do not believe that war is the solution to the problems of the 21st century.”

SOT, Ben Griffin, SAS veteran (English): “These guys, the people who’ve fought in Iraq, Afghanistan , Libya, we’ve seen the direct consequences of these wars, we know that they’re not the solution, it’s highly depressing that a country that’s fought in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya and seen the absolutely devastating consequences of that have decided that it’s an intelligent thing to bomb Syria.”